


The Wizard in the Tower

by MrProphet



Category: Jirel of Joiry - C. L. Moore
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 04:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10689669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	The Wizard in the Tower

When the creatures came to Joiry, they were not mighty, and at first the warriors of the proud keep found great sport in battling the small bands that crossed the river from the forest to the north. But however many of the creatures were slain by the foresters and footmen and knights of Joiry, more came out from the trees with each setting of the sun.

A month after the first creature was seen by the foresters, there were too many for even the mightiest of Joiry’s champions to face alone. A month after that, there was not a man in the keep who would dare to cross the river save in bands of five or six, and armed with long, cross-guarded boar spears.

Even then, few in Joiry ever thought that the creatures might truly present a danger to that mightiest of the city-keeps, but it was not by strength alone that the Lord of Joiry had held the keep so long against the advance of armies and the envy of her peers. Thus it was that Jirel of Joiry sent forth scouts and hunters to seek the source of the creatures, long before others thought it needful, and it was well that she did so.

By the rise of the third full moon after the coming of the creatures, the far shore of the river was black with them. Jirel stood atop her tower and regarded them, her yellow eyes finding out the nature of them, even at such a span of distance. In form they were like men, yet in feature akin to the wild boars of the forest. That they were possessed of some intelligence was witnessed by their shirts of hardened leather, stiffened and stained by some dark, resinous oil, and by the heavy knives which they wore by their sides. That their intellect was not great was witnessed by the hopeless, unordered fashion in which they conducted their campaign.

There was no organisation to their horde, save that they never turned a blade or tusk upon one another. They fought fiercely and with some skill, but with no weapon but those heavy, wicked knives, and could not cross the river in the face of a defended bank. When they tried the archers of Joiry accounted for many dozens of their numbers, and those who made it alive to the near bank were driven down with many thrusts of cross-guarded spears to wallow and thrash their last in the bloody foam of the current.

Five times they attempted such a crossing, and each time their numbers on the following morn had redoubled. Five times Joiry’s valiant defenders repelled the attack without losses, before that dire night when the great river itself became dammed with the corpses of those unnatural beasts, and the great weight of the horde advanced over the raft of their comrades’ bodies.

Twice that night they charged, and twice were driven back, but on the third charge won the bank and drove the defenders before them. A line of stalwart knights held against a murderous pursuit of the retreating men, and at the heart of that line was the Lord of the keep, her sword aflame in the moonlight until black blood cloaked all its brightness.

Back the line fought, to the gates of Joiry, where the advance of the creatures was halted and the portcullis dropped against them.

Thus, the night’s bloody work ended, and Joiry fell to fitful sleep.

*

At the break of dawn, a cry went up that a rider approached. Jirel knew him at once for one of her scouts. She knew that his news must be of grave import, but also that he could not gain the walls unaided, for the keep was surrounded by a sea of dark and porcine forms. Though she had fought longer and harder than any, Jirel would let no other knight ride out without her, and led five valiant men to drive a path through the horde to admit the returning scout. 

Six rode out to meet one, and but three returned: Jirel; Henri, her captain; and the scout, Gérard. A line of spearmen parted before them and closed behind them to drive the creatures from the gate once more.

Jirel called for water and gave it into Gérard’s mouth with her own steel-clad hand. “Rest soon, but speak now,” she told him.

“My Lady, we are beset by an impossible force,” he replied. “The creatures issue from the caves below a tower in the north. The pour forth each night in greater and greater numbers and march south, making directly for Joiry. They have trampled and torn all that lies in their path, but ignore all but their goal, leaving untouched even those villages which lie but half a day from their course.

“Those who survive them speak of a wizard who rules from that tower, taking tribute of the villagers. These creatures are new to them, but the officers of the tower speak of a tribute denied and threaten to turn the creatures upon them if they speak out.”

Jirel ran a hand through her short-cropped red hair. “And is there no sign of this wizard exhausting his supply of creatures?”

“Indeed not. It seems as though the caves contain an endless supply, for each day we watched there came easily twice as many creatures as the day before. Did not young Marius report as much.”

Jirel shook her head sadly. “Young Marius has not returned, nor any other of your party.”

“That amazes me not,” he admitted, “for we were found by the officers of the tower, who came for us all armoured for war so that we, accoutred more for stealth and swift movement, had no choice but to take flight. Yet Marius we sent a month past to bring you word and my heart aches that he is lost, for he was a valiant youth.”

“That he was,” Jirel agreed, “but he shall be avenged.”

*

Without delay, Jirel unfolded to her most faithful and redoubtable warriors a scheme of great daring. She proposed that she might ride out with all her knights and once more cleave a path through the horde. As the Lord of Joiry proposes, so the men of Joiry dispose, and all fell out as she intended. At the edge of the wood the force turned and fled in apparent disorder to the keep, and for the third time the gate was slammed in the face of the horde. 

All of this last, Jirel of Joiry watched from the edge of the woods, for as the force had turned three riders had remained: Gérard, Henri and Jirel herself. Guided by Gérard, the three went with all speed around the edge of the horde, to approach the wizard’s tower from the north. Jirel saw with her own eyes the caves from which the creatures emerged and she felt in her skin and in her gut the crawling, gnawing taint of hateful magic. She watched also the officers of the tower and counted only three.

“In that tower is a wizard,” she told her men, “and I shall kill him.”

She led her men to the gate of the tower, which lay open without fear of attack. Jirel could alone have overmatched the three officers; with Gérard and Henri at her side there was barely time for anything that she would have dignified with the name of a fight.

“Hold this stair,” she ordered the men, and alone she mounted to the wizard’s chamber at the very pinnacle of the tower.

At the door of the chamber she halted, filled with a sudden horror. Her soul cried out at the magic which washed from the wood, pounding against her like the ocean waves. She knew without doubt that what lay within the chamber was beyond her skill and strength to defeat and she fled away down the stairs.

No sooner was the door beyond sight, however, than Jirel smote her fists upon the wall in shame. Never in her life had Jirel of Joiry fled from any man or woman, but met every challenge head on, with sword or knife in hand, or with upraised fist or levelled spear. Never had she run and, although her body bore the scars of a hundred injuries, only one marred the smooth perfection of her back, and that from a traitor’s knife.

With gritted teeth, Jirel mounted the stairs. Once more she was driven back by the wall of fear, but once more she halted on the stair and gathered her wits.

A third time she mounted to the door, and this time she armed herself, not with steel but with memory. She summoned up in her mind every horror that had ever beset her, and much had she known. She who had fought against conquerors and wizards, had raised steel against dark magic and embraced the power of the Black God simply to taste revenge, had never flinched, even from her own destruction, if it would win the day for her Joiry, refused to be defeated by a door.

With a mighty cry of “Joiry!” she smote the door with her blade and it burst asunder, its wood all rotted and softened beneath a glamour of strength.

Jirel sprang through, the spell-born fear falling from her heart to leave nothing but the courage and rage of a lioness. She lifted her sword to strike, but her anger found no target; the room was empty of life. All that remained of the enemy whom she sought was a shrivelled, dusty skeleton clad in rotten robes.

“How can this be?” Jirel demanded. With a sweep of her sword she scattered the old bones. A silver coronet slipped from the skull and bounced to her feet. It rang like a bell each time it struck the stone and Jirel felt once more the presence of magic at her feet.

She bent and lifted the coronet, and at once her head swam with her awareness of the power of it.

 _Jirel_ , it seemed to whisper, a voice in the back of her mind.  _Jirel, I am power. I am the key to the wizard’s gate._

As it spoke, she saw the gate; a hole in the world through which the creatures poured. She knew in her heart that the gate would open into any world; that chance had allowed it to open now, centuries after its creator’s death, but that the coronet would still grant her the power to go anywhere, to summon servants from any realm and to dominate them like a goddess. She knew that only the wizard’s last desire – to control the gateway beneath Joiry’s dungeons – sent the creatures to her keep and that she need only don the coronet to turn them to any purpose she might desire.

 _Use me_ , the coronet coaxed.  _You are worthy to be my mistress!_

Jirel lifted the silver band above her head and her mind was flooded with images of herself, ruling as a mighty queen, sending out her otherworldly armies to crush every realm of the Earth, while princes and envoys prostrated themselves at her feet and begged her favours. Her heart swelled with ambition, but then she looked upon the bones scattered at her feet.

“And what did you show to him? To your creator?” she demanded. “What images of glory were his she rotted away in this chair?”

With a single, swift motion she flung the coronet to the floor. It shattered with a single, clear, high chime and the voice in her head gave a single scream. Far below, the wizard’s gate closed forever.

Jirel of Joiry kicked the broken pieces of the coronet aside and then turned and strode from the wizard’s chamber.


End file.
